


Hole in my Canvas, Hole in my Heart

by HaofansGuitar (washiwu)



Category: UNINE (Band), UNIQ, nex7 - Fandom, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV), 青春有你 | QingChunYouNi
Genre: Artist AU, Cats, Chunyang and Wenxuan are students, Fluff, Guanyue is olivious, Guanyue wants to matchmaker, Jiayi is a terrible barista, M/M, University AU, Wenhan is a freelance artist, coffee shop AU, cooking disasters, nex7 are cats, soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 15:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/washiwu/pseuds/HaofansGuitar
Summary: Seven o clock was both far too early and far too late for anyone to be awake and functioning. Wenhan does not have the energy to deal with this at the current moment, not without any caffeine.Damn cats, damn pressure cooker and damn Hu Wenxuan-In which Wenhan has a personal vendetta towards cats, Jiayi cannot take a correct order to save his life and Guanyue only wants to get Jiayi a boyfriend.As always, Huaiwei got ignored by Guanyue again





	Hole in my Canvas, Hole in my Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I suddenly realise that I have a big obsession with the QCYN boys putting pressure cookers through parts of the kitchen.... It’s the second time in two fics......
> 
> Also I bully Wenxuan far too much in here, someone save him from me

I  
Seven in the morning was both far too late and far too early for anyone to be awake. Wenhan had quickly come to this hypothesis after staying up the entire night finishing a commission for a client who thought that 2 days was enough to finish a 2 metre by 2 metre piece. Not to mention all the other requests from other clients who had more reasonable deadlines. By the time he had finished anything, the sun was already up and deciding that the best idea was to shine directly in his face, and the only thought that remained inside of him was absolute loathing for his chosen career. He couldn’t remember how many times now, that his clients had thought that being a freelancer meant that they didn’t need to pay him, and how many times he almost got taken to court because of it. Damned clients and the idea that the customer was always right. If one more person came up to him claiming that he should only be working for maximum £2 an hour than he was going to rip up all his canvases and ask them to work their nine to five job for a measly £2 an hour.

He fell asleep, cursing at all the difficult commissioners he had met in the past, hoping not to be disturbed for another couple of hours or so. He knew that Chunyang had a class at nine, but surely he could take himself there. Surely. They were nineteen for Heaven’s sake, surely they could look after themselves without him for once.

Wenhan should have known better than to believe that.

He honestly, really didn’t know what he was thinking when he agreed to let the two university students live with him, and he had no idea what he wanted out of it. However, what he did know was that he hadn’t wanted this. He hadn’t wanted to be woken up by screams at half past seven, on roughly 20 minutes of sleep (he was being generous here, it was more like 10), being told that the kitchen was on fire and that Wenxuan had blown a pressure cooker through their kitchen window. 

God, he needed some caffeine before he went to sort that one out.

Ever since he had moved out of Yixuan’s apartment, life had been difficult and tiring. He had originally just wanted his own apartment for more space to put his art equipment. Wenhan thought of a life where he didn’t come home to another one of his canvases ruined by curry sauce, or whatever hotpot base Yibo had used earlier, where he didn’t have to look at Sungjoo covered in the acrylic paint that he had managed to knock over again. He had had that, briefly. He had had the space to put all his art equipment without it getting knocked over every twenty seconds, and could just do what he wanted with them without having to listen to Yixuan complain about the mess again. But that was before he had adopted his two children.

Not officially adopted, no matter how much Chunyang whined about that. The two of them were far too old to legally get adopted, and actually, only Chunyang wanted to. Wenxuan had made it clear multiple times that he was getting dragged here, and that he only still stayed there to avoid paying rent at some other stranger’s place.

Chunyang insisted that Wenxuan did actually like it there, but Wenhan didn’t care too much either way.

When the two of them came, the apartment started getting a little more rowdy, but bearable most of the time, as long as Chunyang was not tripping over any paint brushes. But then came the cats.

Three of them.

Wenhan wasn’t quite sure how and when they started appearing, but they did, one after the other. Wenxuan cooed at each one, and cuddled with them, naming each one. That, however, only lead to Wenhan questioning his naming abilities.

“What sort of name is Bevan?” Wenhan had asked him, exasperated. “ Have you ever come across English names Wenxuan? Bevan, QZ and Zero, next thing you’re telling me is that you once named your cat Tortoise.”

“Not Tortoise, but one of them is named Monkey.”

At that response Wenhan narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t tell me more came. Three is enough as it is, how messy is the house going to get with another one!”

Wenxuan rolled his eyes at him, a common occurance most days. “There are seven. There have always been seven. These three are the only ones that come here. Theo, Monkey, Justin and Adam are all next door. I hear from from Bevan that they’re a handful.”

Wenhan sighed at that, walking away to finish more important things, muttering to himself underneath his breath about Wenxuan’s claims of being able to talk to the cats, and why on earth would you name a cat Monkey.

The cats were absolute devils though. Wenhan didn’t know if had one canvas. At the moment which didn’t have mud coloured paw prints coloured on top of them, or one paint that hadn’t been ruined by the cats trying to get in them.

After hearing Chunyang’s screams and looking at Wenxuan stood with a pink apron that was still smoking and a opened packet of ramen in his hands, the only thing that Wenhan could possibly process in his mind at that moment was : “Fuck it.”

It was far too early, he had had far too little sleep and genuinely. the only thing he needed there and then was coffee, and a damn strong one at that.

He chucked a fire extinguisher at the two of them and left for the coffee shop, hoping to take a nap there, ignoring Wenxuan’s shouts behind him about how he never takes any responsibility. Wenhan doesn’t even know where he got the fire extinguisher from. After the two of them started living with him, it had become a habit to keep one just in case. Now he thinks about it, it was probably the one that Chunyang managed to accidentally steal from that one university dorm as a dare that time that their senior warden was out.

Wenhan essentially barraged his way to the new coffee shop that he had heard from Yibo had opened a while back. Well, he barraged his way through, not that there was much opposition anyway. The people who knew him knew that this was Li Wenhan being boxed in from too much work and stress once again and knew better than to stand in his way. The people who didn’t moved back because Lord this guy in spiderman pyjamas with dark eyebags was scary. He arrived at the coffee shop much faster than he would usually, but his mind processed none of that, with it still mostly focused on his coffee.

No one else was in the coffee shop, only the three baristas that seemed far too cheerful at this sort of time. The shortest one, with dark, maroon red hair stepped.

“Morning! What can I get you?” He chirped, seeming to disregard Wenhan’s very scary appearance at that moment. With no one else in the coffee shop at that time (Wenhan would probably have questioned that if he had any functional brain cells then) the three barista’s attention seemed to be solely on him.

“Mmhh...” Wenhan wondered how many espresso shots he could possible get away with without dying and causing his apartment to burn down. “Doppio Espresso with...let’s go with twenty espresso shots.”

He could see the barista’s eyebrows raising at his order, questioning whether or not to question about it again. Apparently he decided against it, as the only thing that came out of his mouth was “Can I get a name for that then?”

“Wenhan,” he said, wondering exactly how many shots it would need to take out a human. Or maybe a cat. Could he poison one of the cats by swapping their water with coffee?

“Right, okay….. Jiayi, did you hear that order?”

Nah…. they probably wouldn’t drink it. And if Wenxuan ended up finding coffee in their water bowl, then he was dead. Screwed. Buried in a ditch, ten feet under.

“Hey, Jiayi, are you listening?”

Wenhan is startled out of his thoughts by the red haired barista who just served him, glaring up at the one of the other, much taller barista’s and shoving a cup in his face.

“Doppio. Twenty shots. Go!”

Jiayi, as he seemed to be named, blinked, before coming to his senses, grabbing the marked cup in front of him. 

“Uh, yeah right. Caramel Frappe right, Guanyue?” 

The two servers looked at him like he was crazy.

“Jiayi, are you okay? I swear to God I’ve never seen you so out of it. Doppio. Twenty Espresso Shots.”

Guanyue, the maroon haired boy, shook his head at the blond. 

“Huaiwei, I swear that kids going crazy. I thought he was fine until a few minutes ago, he just completely blanked out when- ”

He suddenly cut himself off, as if realising something and turned to look at Wenhan, who had gone back to wondering if he could possibly get rid of any one the cats.

The boy next to him looked intrigued as well, and leaned in when Guanyue ushered him over.

“Huaiwei, the only other time I have ever seen Jiayi like that is the time that he met Zhang Yixing. Which either means that this is his idol, or he just thinks that he’s ridiculously cute. He doesn’t seem to be famous, so now, it's time for us to play matchmaker.”

He whispered all this to Lian Huaiwei excitedly, forgetting to check where Jiayi was and if he was listening to them.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and a overly polite smile pointed at him as the same person put down a cup of coffee.

“Hazelnut Macchiato.”

At those two words Guan Yue sighed, yanking Jiayi’s hair whilst Wenhan looked at his order confused.

“Are you a idiot Jiayi? Doppio, he ordered a doppio with twenty shots of espresso, keep up will you? God, make this again.”

“That caffeine you ordered will be up… soon. Once he gets his mind back.” Guanyue smiled at Wenhan, although he wasn't sure if it was really a smile, because to him it looked like a forced grimace.

“I swear to God Jiayi that Espresso had better have every single one of those twenty shots in it, or else your cats are getting drowned.”

“Jeez, Yue, I got it. Doppio with twenty espresso shots, no more, no less. What’s got you in such a mess that this order needs to be correct.” Jiayi rolled his eyes at him, shooting a grin to Huaiwei, behind him.

“Just attempting to get you date, jeez….. none of my hard work here ever gets recognised...”

 

Y’know, Twenty shots takes a long time. Like a helluva long time. Like a “You order was already messed up and there’s still another 10 shots in line” long time. Jiayi was slowly realising that as he tamped another shot into the already very caffeinated mixture.

“You sure you ain’t gonna die from this mate?”

He glanced over at the (exceedingly handsome) customer, who had almost fallen asleep where he was waiting. He seemed tired to Jiayi, with the incredibly dark eye bags and the altogether dozy demeanour. 

He sighed, turning back to the next shot which had just finished tamping. Just a couple more to go he supposed, filling it up again, aware that Guanyue had moved next to him and has shoved his face very close to his own. Well, as close as he could with their six centimetre height gap.

“Huang Jiaxin, you will write your number on the cup before you give it to him, and then when he messages you, you will ask him out.”

Jiayi looked at him confused as he started fitting the tamp back on again.

“And why would I do that Yue?”

Sure the customer was handsome, and it was enough for him to lose concentration and mess up the order, but surely it didn’t deserve his number…. did it?

“You have literally given up your number for less. My dear god, just do it and stop being a lonely single.”

“Says the one who literally has had someone pining after them for better part of the last year and yet still refuses to acknowledge it.”

Huaiwei looked on from the side, wondering if Guanyue might have gotten the hint from that and finally notice him.

“I literally have no idea what you are one about Jiayi. Shut up and carry on with those shots.”

Jiayi rolled his eyes, going to tamp another shot and shooting Huaiwei an apologetic look. Huaiwei pouted at Guanyue, upset that he got ignored once again.

Eventually, all twenty shots were done and the extremely caffeinated drink was handed over to Wenhan (with Jiayi’s number scribbled very quickly on the side by Huaiwei) and the artist took it, too relieved to finally get his caffeine to think about anything else. He did not want to know how bad the damage was back at his apartment.

Wenhan reluctantly made his way home, wondering how much it would cost to repair a window. Probably more than one of his commissions. See, this is why he hated the clients that thought it was perfectly okay to charge him at the rate of £2 an hour. Even with his normal rate it was difficult taking care of himself, his two kids, and all of his art equipment , not to mention the excessively expensive cat food that Wenxuan kept insisting that they need to keep buying for the cats. And now to add in cost for this window repairs.

What was Wenxuan even doing for him to be able to put a pressure cooker through the window. What’s more, what was he even doing with the pressure cooker at all. Didn’t Chunyang say that he was just making some ramen? What on earth did he need the pressure cooker for them?

Wenhan sighed as he unlocked his door, his mind clearer after drinking half of his coffee. It was ridiculously bitter, just the way he needed it for him to properly wake up and not give enough fucks to deal with this whole situation.

Wenxuan and Chunyang had, apparently, left for class. Getting that coffee had taken quite a long time, and the two of them were probably going to be late anyway at the pace that the two of them were working at anyway. 

Peering into the kitchen, Wenhan saw that a wooden board had been nailed into place in front of where there was once a window. The pressure cooker was also retrieved, and still in a somewhat acceptable condition, despite the slight denting and muddiness to it. The state of the kitchen was…. acceptable for now. He didn’t want to know what lay beyond the wooden boarding , and so Wenhan chose, instead , to go back to working at one of his many upcoming pieces.

Quickly Wenhan realised that though his two kids may have attempted to clear up the kitchen, they obviously had not been concentrating or checking to make sure nothing came in from the goddamned hole in the window. In the living rooms amongst all his canvases and paints and materials was a cat. A goddamned cat. A fucking cat that was hissing and glaring at Wenhan, it’s fur matted down with wet paint, colours spread all over a blank canvas and another one of his commissions with a hole through it. A commission that was due later today. God this was going to be interesting.

Wenhan chucked the cat into their bathtub, ignoring the yowling from it and any attempted scratching. Well, at least the canvas that the cat destroyed wasn't anything too important. Only the work for a client that was less than happy to pay the non refundable deposit and thought that he should be working for free. Wenhan would have destroyed the canvas himself if he wasn’t so worried for his reputation in the industry. And now well…. it wasn’t his fault. If he wasn’t going to spend 4 hours making a copy, well, no one could blame him, could they.

“Damn Wenxuan and his damn cats. Gah!” The cat in the bathtub scrabbled at the sides, trying and failing to climb out as paint washed of it’s fur. “Which one even are you? Zero, I swear if it's you that’s you who's gotten into my paints again I am actually drowning you.”

As more of the paint started to come off Wenhan become confused, as the fur underneath wasn’t the white grey of QZ , or the brown fur of Bevan or Zero. Instead he was met with a dark maroon red, like that of one of the baristas earlier.

“Who.... the hell are you?” This was not a cat he had seen around here before. “If Wenxuan got a new one then he can take all his cats and move off elsewhere, I’m not taking another one in!”

Wenhan sighed. Looking at the dark brown coloured water, he shook his head, mourning for his paints.

“Alright, Let’s get you out but don’t you dare touch my paints okay?”

He picked the cat up out of the water, in a towel, trying to avoid it’s claws as it started screeching.

“Shut up, I’m throwing you out, don’t you dare come back in again!”

Wenhan carried the struggling cat within the towel, getting water on his T-shirt as he went to get his destroyed canvas. There wasn’t much use for it now anyway, so there was really any point in keeping it.

He kicked open the door, cat still growling in his arms as he wondered where he could throw the canvas. He carried it with his arm through the hole that the cat had made.

‘Justin? What have you done now!’ 

Wenhan turned around, narrowing his eyes at the familiar voice. The tall blonde haired barista from the coffee shop earlier was behind him, looking at the cat in undisguised horror.

‘I let you out for one morning and you manage to escape the house and destroy someone else property? That is just…’ suddenly he seemed to realise that there was indeed a person holding said cat.

‘Uh… hi?’ Wenhan looked at him inquisitively, wondering why he was just talking to the cat.

‘I am so sorry for whatever damage he cause, and like I’ll try to repay anything repairs or any and, and … and….’ he paused, as if realising something. “Hey, aren’t you that guy with the twenty shots of espresso earlier?” 

“Yup….I’m assuming that this is your cat who just destroyed my commission that was due in today.”

Jiayi suddenly realised that his cat had caused so much trouble this time.

“Oh no…. oh no….. Justin why do you keep doing this….”

**Author's Note:**

> Now let’s wait ten thousand years before I come back with the next two parts......
> 
> Now keep watching QCYN, stop Iqiyi from being a snake and vote for Shao Haofan cowards.
> 
> Come talk to me about random stuff at:
> 
> Instagram(Idol Producer): @wenjunstiddies  
> Instagram (QingChunYouNi): @haofansguitar  
> Twitter : @wenjunstiddies


End file.
